It’s been a few years since Episode II. Anakin (Hayden Christensen) no longer looks like the kid from the Dell commercials. In fact, he now sports a retro hairdo reminiscent of Luke Skywalker circa 1977.
Lucas finally got the message that people don’t like Jar Jar Binks. He only makes the briefest appearance and thankfully has no speaking lines. Too bad the other characters have to talk. Whenever anyone opens their mouth, you have to grimace. Are they all horrible actors, or is it the lines they are forced to say? I’m afraid that it’s both.
One bright spot amidst the otherwise lousy acting was Yoda. He may be incapable of speaking a single sentence with the subject and object in the correct order, but he does it with feeling. Yoda has definitely brought it up a notch since the last movie and deserves to win the Academy Award for Best Muppet Actor.
Episode III is less of a kid’s movie than any other Star Wars movie, even the first one. In nearly every scene, someone’s (or something’s) limbs are being chopped off. Cute robots get very little screen time; most of the robots we see are evil robots. There are no Ewoks. Besides Yoda, the only aliens that are even remotely cute are the Wookies, and those guys have a hard edge to them.
The problem with this movie, besides the acting, is the lack of suspense. Basically, everything about this movie’s plot is pre-ordained. You know exactly what’s going to happen to all of the major characters because we all saw the original Star Wars. So it’s no surprise that Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is evil, or that Anakin Skywalker joins him and turns to the Dark Side, or that Yoda and Obi Wan (Ewan McGregor) live and all the other Jedi die, or that Obi Wan and Anakin/Darth Vader have a big fight at the end in which Anakin’s body is maimed and he has to spend the rest of his life looking like the Darth Vader we remember from the original movies.
I liked Episode II better. In Episode II, we weren’t quite sure exactly what was going to happen. In Episode II, it was hilarious to see Yoda pick up a lightsaber and have a duel with an evil Sith. Yoda sees a lot more action in Episode III, but it’s no longer funny. We’ve seen this sight gag before. In fact, Episode III is the most humorless Star Wars movie to date.
In Episode III, George Lucas tries to move from sci-fi to sci-phi. That’s phi for philosophy. But it’s not very good philosophy.
“The Jedi only know one side of the Force. To truly understand the Force, you need to know both Sides,” Chancellor Palpatine tells Anakin. It’s almost as if George Lucas remembered the Star Trek episode in which the transporter splits Captain Kirk into the good Kirk and the bad Kirk. Without his bad side, Kirk couldn’t be an effective leader. But of course, ever since his success with the original Star Wars (the story which was shamelessly but very effectively copied from J.R.R. Tolkien), Lucas’ ego is way too big to ever watch someone else’s creative works. Any resemblance to other fiction is purely a coincidence.
“If you're not with me, then you're my enemy,” Anakin tells Obi Wan. “Jedi don’t speak in absolutes,” responds Obi Wan. But don’t they? Aren’t they absolutely certain that only bad can come from knowing the Dark Side? Isn’t this a movie about Good and Evil in which everyone is clearly on one side or the other? At least the first movie had main characters, such as Han Solo and Chewbacca, who gave the appearance of not being on any side other than their own.
Anakin’s “slide” into evil makes absolutely no sense. One day Anakin buys completely into being on the side of Good, except for him secretly marrying Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) and being eager to be promoted to “Master Jedi.” (Oooh, how evil it is to want a wife and a promotion at work!) But then a day later he’s killing children.
I give Episode III two out of five stars. The special effects were great, but otherwise the movie was boring and pointless. What a huge disappointment.
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Around the blogosphere:
Ed Driscoll agrees that the movie was bad. “These three prequels are so far removed from the tone and the fun of their predecessors from '77 to '83 that it's sad.”
Vodkapundit explains why Anakin’s slide into evil was so believable. Huh? Was he watching the same movie? Pete the Elder was also watching a different movie. “The actual path Anakin follows to the dark side was better and deeper than I expected.”
PunditGuy compares the Jedi Council to the Catholic Church. This is an obvious comparison, because both institutions require celibacy. However, the reason for the Jedi Council requiring celibacy, that being married encourages one to succumb to the Dark Side of the Force (yes, that’s right), doesn’t apply to the Catholic Church.
Ninme rightfully complains about the original version of the original movies not being available on DVD. “George Lucas is to be encouraged to release the original originals on DVD. Hans shot first, damnit.” This echoes the point in my review that unlike the characters in Episode III, Hans Solo was not a caricature of Good or Evil. I would certainly buy a copy of the original Star Wars on DVD if it were ever released.
Marginal Revolution has a fantastic post about whether the Jedi Council is really Good. “As I understand it, they vote each other into the office, have license to kill, and seek to control galactic affairs. Talk about unaccountable power used toward secret and mysterious ends.”
Now that I've seen episode III, I can say that it's better than I expected. I wasn't looking forward to this one precisely because we knew what was going to happen, what had to happen, but seeing it all come together really does give a sense of completion, and makes me want to go see the very first one again.
While I agree that Anakin's conversion doesn't seem very believable, I'd give Lucas points for trying to deal with it. Normally in space opera, the bad guys are just plain evil for little or no apparent reason, much like the other bad guys in this movie--Chancellor Palpatine or Lord Devious.
I also liked that there was more philosophy in this movie, political and otherwise, and although the quality of the philosophy wasn't too great, it was enough to make me think about the issues involved.
Posted by: Michael A. Clem | May 25, 2005 at 01:30 PM
Things I liked:
*It's explicitly stated why Obi-Wan and Yoda were able to transcend death in Episodes IV and VI.
*It was nice to see Chewie, though he did nothing.
*The purge of the Jedi Temple was foul, as it should be.
*Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin was much better at the start of this movie than it was in Episode II. Ben's nostaglia about him in Episode IV now seems plausible.
*The debate over why 3PO doesn't recognize Obi-Wan, Tatooine or the "Skywalker" name is put to rest.
Things I didn’t like:
*Anakin's reason for going to the Dark Side -- belief that Padme was going to die in childbirth -- was incredibly weak. He lives in a galaxy where you can clone human beings and grow them by the millions in artificial wombs! Doctors in his era can't monitor a low-risk pregnancy and save the mom and the babies, only the Sith can? That's just silly.
*The Obi-Wan vs. Anakin fight was too short.
*Yoda gave up too easily against the Emperor. The book gives a decent reason, but...
*Darth Sidious looks silly when his hood is down.
*Darth Sidious doesn’t seem as powerful or as menacing as he did in ROTJ.
*No new Force powers were revealed.
Posted by: Michelle Pessoa | June 03, 2005 at 03:03 PM
Sorry but i did like number 3 cos of the graphics and yes we did know what was going to happen but honistly if you knew waht was going to happen then way watch it in the first place and make comments like you have!I really thought it was a good movie and i have see it twice and yes i will see it again!
Posted by: DIZZY | June 21, 2005 at 11:39 AM
Did you get your film critics license from a box of cornflakes. EpIII was way better than the first two, and in ways equal with the original moves. You are being too much a cynic and not enougth imaginative. I didn't find Haydens acting bad at all (like in epII) or any of the others for that matter. No suspense - what! I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie seeing how it all finally unfolded.
Humorless? Yes thats right. This is the movie where the dark side takes over, the empire takes power and Lukes father is seduced by the emperor to Darth Vader. What is funny about that. It is not supposed to be funny and landing jokes in the movie would not suit the seriousness of the story in this movie. I didn't find that much humor in 'The Empire Strikes Back' for that matter.
Even though we knew the final outcome (which does not make it a bad movie) we did not know how it was to take place. You don't see it coming that Anakin would not choose the dark side over Padme, but choose it for her. That he believed she would die in childbirth from dreams was set up in epII about his mother and totally believable. Yes we know that Anakin turns to Darth Vader, but we don't know that its from a duel with Obiwan unless you have read about the story previously, which I had unfortunately.
Actually Lucas got his whole idea for Star Wars from Flash Gordon, plus he studied alot of other material, so to say he has a big ego and would not learn from others is unfounded.
The only thing I can agree with you on is when Obiwan says to Anakin "only a sith deals in absolutes" cause usually it is bad people that say there are no absolutes, so anything they want and want to do to others is okay.
Anakins slide into evil can make alot of sense. When he bought totally into the side of good was when he was like, a child, a long time before sliding to the dark side.He already had darkeness within him even though he was on the side of good. Just think of all the soldiers who were once innocent as children, then one day joined the war in Iraq and ended up killing a whole bunch of people, some women and children, just for someone elses cause. Thats what happened to Anakin, why he killed the younglings in the temple.
Honestly, if you found the movie boring, pointless and a huge dissapointment, you probably didn't like the first two and are not a Star Wars fan at all.
Posted by: Martin Horvath | July 10, 2007 at 11:55 PM
Another storyline glitch that bothered me besides Padme's death in childbirth (why couldn't she at least have had some physical cause to at least make her death believeable!?) is why Anakim could believe Palpatine/Sidious had some happy curative powers from the Dark Side? Palpatine at no point gives an idea (let alone delivers anything) from the Dark Side. Anakim just seems to presume the answer is to found there and ignores any Jedi teachings about avoiding the Dark Side.
Later on Anakim's tells Padme about 'my new powers', which are? Hell, he doesn't even use Dark Side Lightning against Obi Wan (which I thought would have been cool and proved he was definitely a Dark-Sider now)!
Maybe:
"I used to hack people up with a lightsabre and feel bad about it, but now I dont! :P"?
Posted by: Gil | July 11, 2007 at 02:31 AM